


Summer princess

by akingdomofunicorns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Female Friendship, Infidelity, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:54:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akingdomofunicorns/pseuds/akingdomofunicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little bits and pieces regarding Elia Martell and other characters' feelings towards her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The blood is in his hands (Arthur)

He has never hated Rhaegar bloody Targaryen more than when Eddard bloody Stark runs that sword of his through his chest. Because the Dragon Prince had taken the young girl, who wasn't yet a woman, when she was not his to have. Because he had Elia Martell —sweet and clever and hard and witty Elia, who was everything Arthur had ever wanted, and she had not been enough for another man.

Because the she-wolf that lives in the blue winter rose, hidden in this tower that does not bring joy, but sorrow, is fading away and Elia was bent and bowed and broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hello beautiful people! You see, I have a lot of Elia feels and I need to get them out. Lots and lots of feels and also Arthur feels, too. It makes me want to go insane, but instead I write fics for them (I guess I am kinda insane). Also, feel free to tell me what I did wrong so I can improve.


	2. A lion loves in shades of colour (Jaime)

He loved a princess that was made of summer. And he painted her in shades of blues and greens, covered her in golden ashes and grey sunsets. And her skin was the colour of the love he bore her and she smelled of pinks and oranges darker than the black of her hair and her eyes smiled at him even when the whole kingdom was falling apart around the both of them.

And on days like this, when all he can hear is her laughter, all he can remember is the touch of her hands and he can barely say her name —he also remembers why he always hated dragons in the first place.

He loved a princess once, lion knight that he was, but she was destroyed by a man and his fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of Jaime and Elia feels too, okay? And yes, I do know there was Cersei at the time, but he was fifteen and Elia was older and I figured she would be kind and pretty and exotic and warm and everything Cersei wasn't and Jaime could have been infatuated with her. Also, I love writing angst with some characters, such as Elia.


	3. The vows we broke (Arthur)

The last time he sees her, it is from afar. She's with her daughter — _their_ daughter— and she refuses to speak with the Prince. Viserys is there too, clasping Rhaenys' hand in his own (Rhaenys, his beautiful girl with Elia's colouring and thick dark hair and violet eyes, the violet of the Daynes, his violet, duller than that of the Targaryens, kinder and sweeter and all Arthur and Ashara), throwing murderous looks at his brother and murmuring to Elia. And she looks beautiful and regal, thrice the Queen Rhaella ever was and will never be, thrice the woman the Prince will ever deserve.

Their eyes find each other in the distance and hers are dark and bright and big, passionate and strong, beautiful and warm like the sand of Dorne, dangerous like its desert. And his… He doesn't know what she thinks of his eyes, at the moment —what she thinks of _him_. He expects her to hate him, to despise him, to look at him in disgust and to see the hurt of betrayal. But instead she smiles, the same smile that says she understands.

Because she was not his to have, not his to love, not his to touch. So he'll go with the Prince —he refuses to say or think his name after what he's done to Elia, refuses to believe he's a dragon when all he can see is a selfish, almost mad, man— to collect the girl. And after that he'll guard her until he can return to Elia's side, because it turns out he had had her and he had loved her and he had touched her, and he cannot break anymore vows or he'll go insane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with all my Elia and Arthur feels (I call it Arthelia and Elia x Jaime shall be Jelia or Lannirtell and I am not joking) and I'm angsting over it because of reasons. And yes, I'd like to believe Rhaenys is Arthur's, not Rhaegar's. It is known.


	4. The dead will come again (Robert)

He conquers a kingdom and loses the love of his life. And everything crumbles around him and beneath him and on top of him and when the world breaks, so does his heart.

Years later, when the same kingdom he conquered is two steps away from being torn apart and he's two steps away from Death's embrace, it is only one face he sees. It is the face of a woman long dead and buried, lost to the world but still present in every step they take. It is the face of a woman who was once loved and cherished, whose body was torn apart from the inside, soiled and sullied.

And he remembers —remembers the sweet way in which she smiled and her shy eyes and her soft skin and the polite and quiet way in which she admired his strength and his war hammer and his mare. And when the memories are consuming him, burning him ( _Fire and Blood Fire and Blood Fire and Blood Fire and Blood_ ), he snaps and it is him who finally crumbles down.

She was Elia of Dorne and though broken, she was never bent and she was never bowed by anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing about Elia and how characters see her in very different ways: Arthur thinks she's strong and sweet and dangerous like the desert; Jaime thinks she's warm and exotic and beautiful and fragile; Robert thinks of her as a ghost who will always haunt his memories and those who fought in his rebellion, a broken woman who was sweet and shy and fragile, polite and quiet, a woman who was just a victim of the dragons he hates so much. And it breaks my heart.


	5. Break me and hurt me (But don’t ever stop loving me)

He meets her for the first time when they’re both young, too young to understand. Her smile is sweet and her eyes are hard and untamable, like the direwolves people say are running now on the other side of the Wall.

She’s so close to Ashara that at some point they start to get close, too. But he doesn’t give in, he’s not old enough to understand.

* * *

 

The sun is going down when he finds her in the balcony. He’s looking for Ashara, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She’s been missing all day and he really needs to find her so they can finish Elia’s present. Her name day is soon and they’re working on a cloak (Ashara is working on it, he just sits there and makes her laugh, tries to choose the beautiful threads that are to be part of the design, but he knows nothing about it).

“Last time I saw her, she was sneaking around with the stable boy to eat peaches and kiss under the tree.”

“He better not—“

“Stop fretting over her, he’s harmless. It will be just kissing, nothing else.”

He looks at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Ashara is my sister,” he says,”I won’t stand here while some idiot dishonors her.”

Elia smiles, but keeps her eyes on the still setting sun. She smells of peaches and sunlight and sand and it makes him dizzy and lightheaded. The world spins, spins and spins and she’s beautiful (not half as beautiful as Asha, but he’s yet to meet a woman —girl, really, Ashara is still a girl— as beautiful as his sister) and, gods, he feels things. Strange things that make his stomach flutter.

“Our sweet Ashara is not stupid,” she finally says,”she can take care of herself. Besides, Orin is sweet, too. Or haven’t you ever kissed a serving girl or a maid or the daughter of the innkeeper?”

He blushes.

“It’s not the same.” He knows his answer won’t satisfy her and flinches as he says it.

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Arthur. But let’s stop talking about your sister, I want to do something fun. I want to dance!”

And the world spins with her when he twirls her around.

* * *

 

Not six months later, Aerys asks for him and claims him for himself so he can put a white cloak over his shoulders. He is no longer a Dayne, just the Sword of the Morning, a member of Aerys’ Kingsguard.

And he actually likes it, somehow. He likes it enough that he becomes friends with Rhaegar Targaryen himself. Until, of course, it is known he’s been betrothed to Princess Elia of Dorne.

* * *

 

He tries very hard to hate the Dragon Prince, but he can’t.

* * *

The skin is all wrong. In fact, every single thing is wrong. The act in itself is wrong, the skin, the eyes, the mouth. He shouldn’t be doing this, he shouldn’t be there.

The girl is beautiful, of course she is. The girl is beautiful and her eyes are dark and her skin is soft, but her lips are thin and glossy and she’s not dark and neither is she hard and strong and sweet and made of glass at the same time. Everything is off, everything is wrong. He tries, he tries so hard it hurts and he closes his eyes and tries and tries and tries —but no, he can’t. In the end, he does not give in. In the end, he keeps his vows. He understands, now, but it’s too late. He also understands that there is only one woman who can break him, the same woman that one way or another will end up hurting him.

But he endures, he always does.

* * *

 

Elia finally comes to court to meet her future husband and Ashara comes with her. They’re as close as ever and he cannot bear to be with his sweet, lovely, amazing and beautiful sister in fear of going mad when being so close to the woman he cannot have. It kills him because he feels as if he’s losing both of them.

But he does not give in, it is not his place.

* * *

 

The day they kiss, it rains.

She comes to him, hot and angry and furious, and she screams at him —she screams until there is no voice left in her body. He lets her, he always has and always will. He lets her feel powerful and strong because the rest of the world doesn’t seem to notice the steel inside her. Not even the Prince (bloody Targaryen, he would’ve liked him so much if he wasn’t betrothed to Elia, if he actually loved her enough to do anything for her, if he took the time to know her and understand her —and it kills him on the inside that he likes him and hates him at the same time), who should know how to handle her.

And in the end, somehow, she ends up crying, because she can’t take it anymore. She just can’t. She can’t take it because she hates King’s Landing and she misses Dorne, she hates the way the Prince doesn’t seem interested into seeing past her fragile health, she hates the words Fire and Blood, because she is a Martell and not even dragons should be able to bow her or bent her or break her, and she fears Aerys will do all that and more.

So he tells her. He tells her everything that’s in his head and his heart and his soul and he really wishes he could just shut up and run away to hide somewhere and wait for the King to burn him alive, but he can’t stop. So he tells her.

He tells her of meeting her for the first time when they were one and ten and three and ten and too young to understand; he tells her of being seven and ten and nine and ten and dancing on a balcony while her scent surrounded him completely; he tells her of losing her first for a white cloak he now hates and then for a prince who doesn’t love her as much as he does; he tells her of not being able to erase her form his mind; he tells her of not being able to be in the same room with her because his insides ache.

He tells her all that and then he patiently waits for a slap or for her to turn around and walk away. She does neither. No, instead she looks him straight in the eye and smiles at him as if she’s been waiting all her life to hear that.

Later, she’ll kiss him, but at the moment it is her smile that finally breaks him —he gives in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love is in the air! Also, I hope Arthur's feelings towars Rhaegar feel real. We're told that he was his closest friend and I believe it to be true (kinda): Arthur was in love with Elia and he was friends with Rhaegar and at first he felt awful for loving her, but he then he starts to see how he doesn't love her enough, doesn't "deserve" her enough and he feels bitter over the fact he gets to have her and all that jazz. But they remain friends, because it is very hard to hate Targy Prince. Until Harrenhal comes and goes. And that is my headcanon. Arthelia forever, people!


	6. The knowledge of war (Tywin)

He knew all of them. He knew them by name, knew their strengths and their weaknesses, their dreams, hopes, passions and desires. He knew them all so well that fifteen years later he can still match the names with their faces. They do not haunt him, even if everybody thinks they do.

He knows they died an awful death, that their visions were stained with red, that their lips opened in screams of terror and pain, that their eyes filled with tears. 

But he also knows that in that castle there was one person who did not break, who did not kneel, who never bowed to the lions. He never knew her like the others, he never learned her well enough, never saw through her, but he knows other things (one thing) —he knows the dornish princess was not scared when Death came to take her. And that is how he sleeps at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This broke my heart in a very weird way. Strange pairing, I know, but I had to write it. Also, I'm doing Nanowrimo, so this things will get written while in English class this month (they always get written while in that class, anyways). Pass the Elia love to everyone!


	7. Here is where I stand, here is where I fall (Arthur)

He knows his place and he knows his duty. And they clash with his needs, they clash with what he wants.

It takes him over a year (it’s shameful, it’s dishonorable, it’s wrong, but oh so right) to fall to his knees and break his vows. A year (just a bit more than a year; maybe a moonturn, maybe a fortnight) before he lets her kiss him, a year before he bites her neck as he lies her down on his bed, as he unties the laces of her dress, as he brings his lips to the sweet spot between her legs. The hair in the craddle of her thighs is thick and dark and coarse, curly and shiny with her juices. His tongue feels sticky when he licks her dark lips, dark as the skin behind her knees, and his teeth graze the small bundle of nerves at her apex.

And Elia is sweaty and trembling and pliant under his fingertips. Or she was, before he had to go away. But Elia is far away, in another world, with the dead. And he is trapped in a tower like a maiden in a song, with a sword made of a fallen star and darkness all around him. But here is where he stands, and here is where he falls.


	8. There is sand in our blood (Ashara)

She mourns Rhaegar’s death for about five moons before the hatred kicks in. And how she hates the silver-haired bastard with his lilac eyes, fair skin and straight nose. She hates him with the little piece of her heart that’s still left in her —the rest is for Arthur and Elia, for sweet and beautiful Rhaenys, for lovely Viserys and the quiet Queen Rhaella, for Aegon, her sweet boy who grows stronger and taller and more handsome with each passing day. Aegon, with Elia’s mouth and Prince Lewyn’s hands and Prince Oberyn’s ears and Queen Rhaella’s sweet voice and eyes.

And it feels like the foulest of betrayals when he tries to call her _Mothe_ r instead of _Septa Lemore_ , because she can still see Elia smiling down at the babe, still sweaty and extremely weak from the birthing; Elia dancing around Rhaenys with the boy in her arms, dark hair flying all around; Aegon crawling on his belly towards his mother with milk dripping down his chin and a piece of a blood orange stuck between his fingers. All Elia, sweet and lovely and beautiful and funny and witty and strong and harsh and wild and untamable... Fierce like the desert.

Because she would have burnt for her, she would have burnt for Elia a thousand times and would have brought down all their demons in her wake. For they were sisters and the desert burnt through their veins.


	9. Stars, in your multitudes (Arthur)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love writing angsty Arthelia. Chapter title from the song Stars, from Les Mis. Norm Lewis singing it gives me all the feels. Enjoy.

“They watch over us, my dear,” his Grandmother used to say when he was still a child, when Ashara was nothing more than a suckling babe at their Mother’s breast. But Grandmother had died a long time ago and Grandfather had followed her not much later and he had found two new stars in the sky. Or so he thought, because in the last years he has forgotten how it feels like, to look up in the sky and see all those stars shining bright and casting that silvery glow over the orange sand.

“Why, Grandmother? Are they Gods?”

“My sweet, sweet Arthur, the stars are not Gods. Not at all. We worship the Seven, sweetling, but remember that we are dornish, we are fire. We have no greater God than the Sun, and its child, the desert, is our Mother and Father —yet we are also Daynes, Dawn is made of the heart of a fallen star and the ones that are still in the sky guide us, they watch over us, they protect us. _They protect us_ , Arthur, for they are the people who have already left us: they are the people we’ve lost, pure souls who have died and have become light.”

He had been so transfixed with her story, sitting at her feet and letting her stroke his hair… Sometimes he had held Ashara because she liked Grandmother’s sweet voice, sometimes Grandfather would scoop him up into his lap and tickle him, interrupting the story. But they always went back to hear it, and Grandmother would be patiently waiting with the warmest of smiles and maybe even a sweet or two, a blood orange or a peach, a lemoncake she had stolen from the kitchen and a kiss at the tip of her lips, ready to caress his forehead.

And when she was at her last moments, he had lay beside her and had listened to her old stories and she had said, the night before she had left them for good, “My sweet, sweet Arthur, when I’m gone, search for a new star in the sky. I will never leave you —everytime someone who loves you dies, you’ll be able to find them up there, in the dark velvet of the firmament. Be good to your Mother, honour your Father and love and protect your sister. Make me proud, my love.”

He doesn’t know why he remembers that so suddenly, why he isn’t thinking of returning home, instead, of stopping this mad war. Or maybe he knows, for there’s a great chance that he _won’t_ get to return. But the next day he looks up and there are new stars shining above his head. He counts them. One, two and a tiny little one that doesn’t shine as bright as the others but that’s still there, three. Three. He knows, before word reaches the Tower of Joy, his bloody prison, his personal Hell, that they are gone.

Elia, Rhaenys and even baby Aegon, nothing more than Elia’s child, but not his, not like Rhaenys.

Still the pain comes fast and hard, and he remembers.


	10. The Knights of Shadow (Eddard)

There’s dark hair on the floor, darker than he’s ever seen: black like the monsters’ souls. Dark curls sticky with sweat and blood, though the blood is hardly visible. Not with the Lannister cloaks wrapped around the bodies.

He feels sick, dizzy.

 _What have we done?_ , he thinks, his palms clammy and his legs trembling. The room feels hot, so hot; he longs for the North, he yearns for the cold snow under his boots, the wind biting at his cheeks and his chapped lips curling into a soft smile when Lyanna would beat Benjen at swordplay, Brandon twirling some pretty girl on the dancefloor and Father laughing with his bannermen. And he misses the Eyrie, too: Jon Arryn and his imposing figure, aging faster every year, yet still strong and honourable, and respect courses through his body as he thinks of who he deems his second father. Jon Arryn, married to young, scared and weeping Lysa Tully, Catelyn’s (his wife, he has to remind himself) younger sister.

 _We have won a war, but the price we’re paying is too much, too high_.

The blood is seeping through the cloth, leaving a wet trail over the marble tiles of the throne room and even if it’s red, terribly red, red as death, it’s turning black, drying and solidifying and he can feel his stomach clenching, preparing to throw up.

 _Red, red, red._ _Targaryen red. Lannister red. Bloody and dead and murdered. Sweet and soft and frail. Lovely and dead. Killed. Raped. We’ve killed_ hope _. Let the Gods have mercy on all of our souls._

He looks hard at the cloak that covers Princess Elia’s corpse, he waits and prays for this to be a dream, a nightmare, but he can feel the pain from his wounds and the fresh scars pulling at his flesh and he knows ( _Gods, have mercy, I’m so sorry_ ) that this is real, this is now, and they’re all cursed. He turns to Robert, he knows even Robert will be wroth at the sight, even Robert will not dare be pleased about this atrocity and he prays and prays and prays that the new King will condemn the men, the beasts, that have dared to commit such a crime —if not for him, if not for Elia, for Lyanna.

Yet Robert’s face is hard as stone and his wrath is not yet quenched and there is pure hatred in his eyes. It is too late for him already. Gregor Clegane lives, so does Amory Lorch and Tywin Lannister marries his girl to Robert, crowning her Queen. In his head, they’re the knights of shadow because they bring darkness and destruction in their wake. And Princess Elia Nymeros Martell (always a Martell, never a Targaryen) and her babes are forgotten.

It is the only thing he’ll never forgive him. 


	11. Lie through your teeth

It’s been hours since she went to the birthing bed; hours spent beside Rhaegar, who murmurs nonsense under his breath and talks excitedly about an Aegon to play with, to read to, to teach him how to play the harp and how to wield a sword. A boy with silver hair, maybe a streak of gold on his brow, lilac eyes with violet specks and skin as fair as pearls, a prince to rule the Seven Kingdoms with fire and blood, a boy who will know how to be king when the time comes, a Targaryen through and through, Rhaegar himself reborn.

Arthur doesn’t want to think about the babe Elia is delivering, doesn’t want to look at him later just to see how much like his father he’ll be; he thinks of a baby with dark hair and darker eyes, brown skin like copper and sand and soil, tiny fingers and little feet and a sweet smile once he grows, a prince or a princess of Dorne, the sun in his veins, blood as warm as the desert and teeth as sharp as a snake’s. A babe that’s everything good about Elia and more, a babe he’ll be able to love even if it’s not his. He wants a baby that’s everything Rhaegar hasn’t thought it might be, a babe that’s not a Targaryen at all, a Martell, a fighter, a viper. But most of all, he wants the babe to be his.

Elia is so very weak when they call Rhaegar to her rooms. He goes with him (it’s his duty, he tells himself, but he’s praying to the Gods that the babe is not like the father at all) and the air is thick with the scent of blood and sweat and tears, salt and steel. Elia looks so small covered with the bed linens and the pillows of golden thread surrounding her and her hair stuck to her brow and her cheeks, pink and burning, and her mouth is dry and almost white, but still she looks beautiful, wild and strong as always, even if he’s one of the only ones who can see it.

“Meet your daughter, my Prince.”

“It’s a… a…”

“Her name is Rhaenys.”

The rest of the family comes to see the child and they’re all so happy for Rhaegar (a girl, a girl, it should have been a boy, is all they must be thinking, all so happy for their perfect prince, none for the princess of summer they seem to forget), and Rhaenys is a Martell through and through, dark hair and dark skin and prince Doran’s smile, is what Elia says. But her eyes… Her eyes are purple and she’s got his sister’s nose and the shape of her cheeks reminds him of his mother.

Rhaegar comments on how dark the purple of her eyes is and Elia flashes him a quick smile before turning to her husband.

“Your father’s eyes, my love.”          

No one sees through her lie, not when they’re too busy talking about how she’s got Aerys’ eyes and Rhaella’s mouth and Rhaegar’s face and how her colouring quite compliments her Targaryen features, though it would have been better a babe that was more a dragon and less a Martell. How foolish they are, he thinks, that they’re not able to see that Rhaenys (her name should have been Allyria or Ashara or Alysanne, Dyria or Eleria or Elenei, names fit for a Dayne) is not Rhaegar’s, but his, it doesn’t matter how much they try to search for Rhaegar in her, the babe is still his. Though the Gods have been kind enough to hide it well and this way the lie won’t taste as bitter, because she can almost pass as Rhaegar’s, he thinks, as he dreams of holding her and having her call him Father.

His honour’s been damned, now, and the Gods won’t forgive, and still he doesn’t have it in him to care, not when he can see his eyes in her. 


End file.
